Invisible Visitors (With Pic)

[Magicmoon]

I'm having a problem with invisible visitors on my residential lots, both in the regular neighborhood and in the university neighborhood. I haven't seen the problem on community lots, but I may have just missed it.

I don't have any townies, so all the invisible visitors are playable characters, who are not playable at the moment.

What happens is that I will see the pool cue playing a game of pool by itself, or I will see another visitor interacting with someone who isn't there. For example, I saw a visitor receiving a backrub, but no one was there. Whenever I click on Inge's shrub I always find that one of the sims that I am allowed to clear off of the lot is nowhere to be seen. If I see a visitor interacting with an invisible sim, I make them selectable and in their queue it will say "receive backrub from 'name of sim'".  So I know that they are not interacting with the social bunny.

If I try to click on the invisible sim (because I know where they are when they are giving a backrub for example, nothing shows up just like there is really no one there.

The invisible visitor is not always the same person. It can be any visitor that I have previously greeted or just invited themselves over. When I play the lot of the invisible visitor, they are always completely normal. They are not invisible on their own lot.

Usually I use Inge's shrub to teleport them off of the lot since my controllable sims cannot interact with them although the other visitors on the lot seem to "see" them just fine. I have never had one of the invisible visitors start a conversation or otherwise engage in activities with my currently controllable sims. Later the same visitor may visit again and be completely normal.

Anyone know what could cause this? It has been happening for quite awhile. But it took me a long time before I figured out what was going on. At first I thought that I just had haunted pool tables or that the pool table had a problem as that was the most noticeable sign.

I've tried to find a common thread such as the same downloaded object on all the lots that have the problem, but I can't find anything that is common to all instances of this. I thought perhaps they became invisible after interacting with a bugged object.

Hack conflict finder doesn't show any conflicts, and I run duplicate file finder after every download session to be sure that I don't have any duplicates.

I did a search for this problem, but didn't find anything.

[cwykes]

No answers for you.  In case it's connected, I've had invisible Sims on business lots who were leaving without paying, but turned invisible and headed back to the til instead. Shopping bag in mid air queueing at the till.....  I posted about it couple of days ago. The only reply was "I've had that too".

[Magicmoon]

Yeah, I saw that thread. I don't have OFB so I'm not having that particular problem.

[Ancient Sim]

The only time I get this is sometimes when I replace a revolting townie with a new one and they don't have the right clothes.  Sometimes it's just a head and hands, sometimes there's nothing at all.  I've got round it by moving them in with Inge's bush, making them selectable, getting them to buy clothes, then making them a townie again.  For some reason, none of the mods that deal with clothes-buying work on visitors, which is why I have to temporarily move them in.

Doesn't sound like this is your problem, but it might be worth putting them in front of a mirror to see if they are wearing any clothes or in the buff.  Mine always appear without clothes when I do that.  If they are naked, there is possibly a problem with their clothing and you might like to try changing their outfit to see if that makes any difference. 

[Magicmoon]

Well, like I said, it isn't the same visitor all the time. It is always one of my random playables and they would all be wearing a different outfit. I cannot make the invisible visitor selectable, so there is nothing that I can do with them while on that lot. When I go to where they live, everything is fine. And mine are always totally invisible. I haven't seen any body parts like hands floating around.

As far as getting townies, etc to wear different clothes. I downloaded a mod by Christianlov over at MTS2 that takes care of that quite nicely. You click on the clothes rack and tell it whose clothes you want to change. (Buy clothes for townie).  It will charge the amount of purchase to whichever sim family has the rack in their house, in other words, whoevers lot you are on. That person will then come onto the lot, walk over to the clothes rack and then the "buy clothes" popup displays. Choose the clothes that you want them to wear. As a bonus, the next screen is the makup screen and the one after that is the surgery screen so if you want to make-over those ugly townies, you can do it.

Just do a search for Christianlov on MTS2.

[nikita]

I had a problem with invisible Sims a while back but mine was much worse in that they lost their character data.  Luckily I back up my game a lot so I replaced their character files with backups from a time when they were fine and all was good again.  Maybe you can try that?

[veilchen]

As far as getting townies, etc to wear different clothes. I downloaded a mod by Christianlov over at MTS2 that takes care of that quite nicely. You click on the clothes rack and tell it whose clothes you want to change. (Buy clothes for townie).  It will charge the amount of purchase to whichever sim family has the rack in their house, in other words, whoevers lot you are on. That person will then come onto the lot, walk over to the clothes rack and then the "buy clothes" popup displays. Choose the clothes that you want them to wear. As a bonus, the next screen is the makup screen and the one after that is the surgery screen so if you want to make-over those ugly townies, you can do it.

Just do a search for Christianlov on MTS2.

Now that is wonderful. None of the clothes changing mods work for me either, so I'm doomed to have my eyes bleed at the horrible outfits the townies sport. I'll definitely try that one out. I hope it works. Whoever dreamed up those outfits that the townies default to is either seriously taste-challenged, or a raging sadist. Thanks Magicmoon

[Magicmoon]

This is still happening and I still can't figure out why. I find out I have an invisible visitor when I catch objects moving on their own...like this:


I use the teleporter bush to discover which visitor is on the list yet not seen on the lot to find out who the invisible sim is. When I go to the offender's lot, they are as normal as ever. "Who" the invisible sim is, is different every time. They take turns.

[ThyGuy]

Ignore this post! IGNORE! IGNORE! IGNORE!

[Magicmoon]

I've been using the teleporter bush to take them off the lot. I'm trying to figure out what is causing it and stop it at its source.

[Magicmoon]

Since I'm not the only one who has been having difficulties with invisible or partially invisible sims, I thought I would risk necromancy to reveal what I have discovered.

I noticed that the invisible sims were on Uni lots more than anywhere else. Yesterday I started a new neighborhood and dorm and almost immediately started seeing sims who were partially invisible...like ghosts...you can see who they are, but also through them. I deleted a dormie, then another, then soon another because of this invisibility. Then one dormie did it for the 2nd time. So I started following her around to see if I could find out what she is doing when she transitions.

Soon I saw her go into her dorm room. Just as the door starts to shut, I see her fade out. When she left her room later she was in the ghost looking state. I watched other dormies and found that they also were coming out of their rooms like this.

Awhile back at MTS2 I downloaded a recolor of the Myne door. It was an invisible recolor. I did it because Maxis made their dorms where the Myne doors are in the way and you can't see what is going on in the rooms behind them, where your sims actually are. This way I could see through the doors and keep an eye on the simmies.

I noticed that the sims comming out of the invisible recolored doors were in the ghost state whereas the doors that I didn't change color (because they weren't in my way) the sims were coming out normal. I recolored all the Myne doors back to the original Maxis colors and the sim invisibility problem seems to be cured. I've played an additional 3 Sim days without invisible dormies.

When I say "recolored" above, I mean from within the game using the color tool.

So am I crazy or is it really possible for someone to color a Maxis object invisible, and end up making the sims who use it invisible too? This was a Maxis recolor I downloaded, not a cloned door.

[Tigerlilley]

In regards to the half invisable dormies, I have those as well.  And i don't have any door recolours.  Ive barely got any hacks / objects at all to be honest.  But thats something ive noticed since I got uni, usually they just got back into their room and reapear whole again at some stage.

edited: cuz I say dumb shit 

[gali]

The only time I remember invisible visitors was, when I played TS2 only, at Strange Town, and all the friends General Grunt brought home were invisible. I saw the same actions as yours (moving plate and someone watching the TV).

I was told that it is a case of bugged helicopter, and since JMP posted the "carpoolfix", it dissapeared.

It is said that the patches fixed it, but I keep this hack until now, through all EPs (I play NL now).

May be OFB brought back this bug?

[cwykes]

Thanks for the info.  Looks like those MTS2 doors have unfortunate side-effects.  They were probably designed for Uni only and messed up with added EPs.  Neither the doors nor the helicopter is my problem though.   I have carpoolfix, but there aren't too many helicopters on business lots anyway.   I don't have Uni, so I don't have Myne doors never mind their recolours.  Could be something else in my downloads though - haven't had the problem recently and I took all my downloads out to try and pin down a couple of problems.  I haven't played enough to be sure.

[Tgdrysix]

I have this issue also.....but I have OFB....my invisible sims are shopping or in a resturante......I can't click on them either and I can't tell who they are to try to fix them....they do however interact with other sims on that lot....maybe  it's a "feature". Tgdrysix

[nekonoai]

I had this happen to a sim that my sim brought home from work. The game said that my sim brought "so and so" home from work, but I didn't see anyone. And then later the TV turned on [by itself] and for some reason my sim wouldn't go in the bathroom... o.O I guess he was on the john. It was odd, but I eventually got him to leave by telling another guest to leave and selecting 'say goodbye to all'

[cwykes]

Mine were about to leave the lot fully dressed, turned invisible at the boundary and went back to pay at the till.  I wondered if it was the effect of a fix for shoplifting.  They do seem to behave like normal sims though.  They aren't stuck in anyway.

[Magicmoon]

Well, the dorm door fix will not fix my original problem. At least I doubt it. The dormies affected were like ghosts. I could see through them and interact with them. But the original problem, the sims were totally invisible and although they could interact with my sims, they can't be clicked on for my sims to start an interaction.

Maybe it is some sort of leftover Maxis code that is running around because the problem seems somewhat common, but yet the Boss hasn't found out the reason nor made an awesome fix for it.

I'll be installing OFB this weekend so I expect to see even more of this behavior in the future.

[GayJohnScarritt]

   I've had 2 completely invisible sims since re-installing all EP's about a month ago.   The first was a Townie Adult, he became friends with a Founder while the Founder was at College, running a Community Business.   At that point he was visible.  Once the Founder moved to start the Neighborhood, he opened up a home Venue Busn.   I first noticed the Townie was invisible when he complained to the Founder.   I was unable to click on him at all.  He stayed invisible until i eventually managed to move him in and got hime to change his clothes.
   The 2nd completely invisible sim was a playable child who was walking by my lot, i clicked on him to control him 'just' as he reached the portal and was fading out, at that point he returned under my control but was completely invisible and un-interactable.  I quit without saving on that one as he was the Heir to the King and i didn't want to mess him up.
   I have no recolection if that Townie was caught at the Comm Business for shoplifting but it's entirely possible.  I haven't run very many retail busn yet, mainly Venue, which could be why i only had the one.

[Annette]

I seem to be seeing the ghost dormies much more lately. Due to a hardware issue I reinstalled everything, all the disks, and have been playing a mostly cc free game. I used to have the ghost issue in Academie La Tour but never in Fiesta Tech. It has now spread to Fiesta Tech. I blame Glamour.....simlpy because you have to blame something 
The dormies do eventually correct themselves, I have given up worrying about them. In the early days of Uni I reinstalled that ep a couple of times because I thought it was a cc bug, now I know it's just a maxis 'feature' 
The totally invisible sims would be a greater worry. I always select 'say goodbye to everyone' just in case though. I have had occasions where the sim is said to bring home a friend, but I just don't see them....I usually assume they are off on the swings and ignore them. Funny how they bring home friends at the most inconvenient times.

[gali]

I think that one solve can be the use of Inge's teleporter, or shrub, and use "remove visitors" option, instead of searching for another visitor to "say goodbye to everyone".

Strange, but I didn't see invisible visitors, since TS2, after I installed the 'carpoolfix' and 'captainherofix'. Perhaps it's some other hack that cause this to happen.

The hacks I have, and I don't see invisible visitors:

breakupfix
calltochat
captainherofix
carpoolfix
portalfix
college adjuster
college clock
comm-skilling
daily gardener
fasterbuyclothes
hugging hack
marriage postmortum
noagediscrimination
nocheering
nohomework
nokickingtrash
norandomflirts
noretiredjobspam
novelprogress
nowhatisthis
payatbox
unsubscribe
phonehack
InSimenator (not the kittens-killer one, lol)

[Avalikia]

I never seen (if you'll pardon the pun) a truly invisible Sim, although I have gotten the half-phased dormie-ghosts.  They seem to come about when I go into build or buy mode while they're in the process of going into or out of their dorm rooms.  I suppose it's possible that there have been invisible Sims around because I've had the option of saying goodbye to everyone when there was supposedly one visitor on the lot, but I've never had a seemingly false brought-home-a-friend dialogue or noted any other odd behavior despite the insane micromanaging I tend to do so I doubt that I'd have missed it.  For the record, I have all the EPs, no stuff packs, and too many mods to list (though I lack a few popular ones so if anyone diagnosing the problem wants to know if I have something in particular, go ahead and ask).

[gali]

The option "say goodbye to everyone" is not for invisible sims, but just in case you don't see some guest in the lot, when you have many guests. For instance, in wedding party, some sims go upstairs, and you don't see them.

[J. M. Pescado]

The option "say goodbye to everyone" is not for invisible sims, but just in case you don't see some guest in the lot, when you have many guests. For instance, in wedding party, some sims go upstairs, and you don't see them.

"Say Goodbye to Everyone" will appear on a visible sim (you can't click on inviso ones), if more than one visitor is present for whatever reason, including being invisible. As for the "going upstairs so you can't see them" thing, this is exactly why "visitor containment" is part of the Awesome design specifications, to keep riffraff from wandering out of your view.

[Avalikia]

Oh, I know for sure that only one visible Sim is on the lot in these circumstances, as I don't have very many big, multi-story houses where a visitor simply wandering out of view would be a problem.  What I'm saying is that sometimes I get the option to say goodbye to all when I know for sure that there is only one visible visitor anywhere on the entire lot.  It's happened quite a few times even when I put a CAS Sim in a 6x5 lot and they're living outside because they can't afford a house and I've checked the entire lot.  It's definately not a case of me simply missing someone who wandered off into the nether regions of the house.